Thursday, January 17, 2013

Counting

This post is about differences in language - but with counting.
We have lived in 3 different language speaking areas
Obviously English (America & Australia)
German (Germany & Austria)
Japanese (Japan)
Each country counts a little differently.
As you are well aware of if you are reading this, in English the numbers 1-10 have their own word as well as 11 and 12, then 13-19 goes into a pattern where you add teen to the end and the same with 20, 30, 40, 50, so on forth - it follows a pattern where each new group of ten has a new word (thirty, forty, fifty) - it might make more sense as to what I mean when I get to Japanese.
In German, like English, you have 1-10, 11 & 12 have their own words and then 13-19 follow a pattern where instead of adding teen you add the German equivalent 'zehn' - pronounced zane. Then each following group of ten has its own word like in english only once you get to 20 you start counting in reverse - so for 21 you would say: one and twenty, for 35 you would say 5 and 30.
In Japanese it is much simpler - 1-10 have their own words, but for 11 you say: ten one, for 12 you say ten two. for 13 you would say: ten three, for 16 you say: ten six. Then for 20 you would say: two ten, for thirty you would say 3 ten, for 50 you would say: five ten. If you wanted to say 73 you would say: seven ten three. If you wanted to say 89 it would be: eight ten four
The numbers in Japanese are (with the English pronunciation)
1 - itchy
2 - knee
3 - sahn
4 - she
5 - go
6 - row-koo
7 - na-na
8 - hah-chee
9 - Q
10 - jew

so 73 would be pronounced: na-na, jew, sahn  (7, 10, 3)

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